[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. This lengthy article in Editor & Publisher gives a good overview of how stats are being used in news organisations. Central to the article seems to be “what should [the] editor do with that knowledge?”. Here’s some key quotes:

“Prior to [a] stats upgrade, where Web site stats came into play was with identifiable waves of interest — which sometimes resulted in high play of a story over several days. Editors left to their own judgment might not have played the stories in the same way or kept them highlighted so long.”

From Guardian assistant editor Neil McIntosh: “Stats can inform decisions and help with the business of allocating resources during a crisis.”

“Another important data point: most e-mailed articles.”

From OrlandoSentinel.com editor Anthony Moor: “Stats are just another, new set of data that we can mine to understand better the relationship between our users and the news. … [My editors] know that they must apply standard journalistic values to what they learn before taking action.”

“Editors must consider not just how much traffic certain features receive, but where that traffic comes from,” warns Meredith Artley, editor of the International Herald Tribune’s Web site in Paris. “[T]he big traffic may not point to pure popularity, but rather to the existence of a bridge or link that leads readers from one site to another, she says.”

“A great way to handle a story that does drive a lot of traffic, says [Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com], is to extend the life of the story not just by promoting it longer, but by adding a Live Online follow-up discussion, creating a photo gallery or video piece to go with it, re-running the story in a feature slot on subsequent days, or buying search terms related to the story to make it more visible outside [the site].”

“the concept of dayparting — that is, changing the homepage content based on time of day and/or the week”

“Web site user-registration databases [can show] what groups are gravitating to what stories.”

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. This lengthy article in Editor & Publisher gives a good overview of how stats are being used in news organisations. Central to the article seems to be “what should [the] editor do with that knowledge?”. Here’s some key quotes:

“Prior to [a] stats upgrade, where Web site stats came into play was with identifiable waves of interest — which sometimes resulted in high play of a story over several days. Editors left to their own judgment might not have played the stories in the same way or kept them highlighted so long.”

From Guardian assistant editor Neil McIntosh: “Stats can inform decisions and help with the business of allocating resources during a crisis.”

“Another important data point: most e-mailed articles.”

From OrlandoSentinel.com editor Anthony Moor: “Stats are just another, new set of data that we can mine to understand better the relationship between our users and the news. … [My editors] know that they must apply standard journalistic values to what they learn before taking action.”

“Editors must consider not just how much traffic certain features receive, but where that traffic comes from,” warns Meredith Artley, editor of the International Herald Tribune’s Web site in Paris. “[T]he big traffic may not point to pure popularity, but rather to the existence of a bridge or link that leads readers from one site to another, she says.”

“A great way to handle a story that does drive a lot of traffic, says [Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com], is to extend the life of the story not just by promoting it longer, but by adding a Live Online follow-up discussion, creating a photo gallery or video piece to go with it, re-running the story in a feature slot on subsequent days, or buying search terms related to the story to make it more visible outside [the site].”

“the concept of dayparting — that is, changing the homepage content based on time of day and/or the week”

“Web site user-registration databases [can show] what groups are gravitating to what stories.”

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. That’s the upshot of Common Times, “a new social bookmarking site for news developed by Jeff Reifman.” as reported by Poynter. Essentially you bookmark your favourite news stories and the site collates the results of its many users to create a common paper based on the most popular cuttings.

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. Very interesting piece in the Press Gazette about the process of producing digital editions of newspapers – and the promising numbers of subscribers to those.

Strangely, ABC apparently don’t include digital editions in their numbers because, says Richard Withey, The Independent’s global director of interactive media, “advertisers argue that an advert seen in a facsimile edition is not comparable to an advert seen in print”

Also interesting is the money made by The Scotsman after it decided last year “it had to digitalise its archive, which goes back to 1817 and was daily from 1860, to preserve it. One benefit of digitalising it was that it could also be made available to the public and for research through Scotsman.com.

“The Scotsman charges users for a timed access — £7.95 for 24 hours, £39.95 for a month up to £159.95 for a year. Multiple access licences are sold to universities and businesses for a few thousand pounds and they are currently discussing a project with the Scottish Executive to make it freely available to all schools in Scotland. The paper has now digitalised up to 1950 and found the 20th century content to be the most popular.

“But the biggest surprise to The Scotsman has been the demand, which means its “substantial six-figure investment” will be paid off within three years.”

Comment can be found at Poynter, which calls the article “an outstanding piece, marred slightly by its focus on just one of the major digital publishing companies, Olive Software. No mention of NewsStand, Advanced Publishing, Zinio, and several others, which ought to have been at least incorporated briefly”.